Jury urges Ontario to ease crackdown on welfare cheats

Unless Ontario ends its harsh, zero-tolerance approach to welfare fraud more people may die, a coroner's jury recommended Thursday.

But the provincial government immediately rejected the recommendation, saying its policy of imposing lifetime bans on benefits to discourage welfare cheats is working.

The jury investigated the suicide of Kimberly Rogers. She was 40, eight months' pregnant and confined to her apartment for welfare fraud when she took a lethal overdose of an anti-depressant during a heat wave in August, 2001.

The circumstances of her death sparked outrage at the time. Activists blamed the Ontario government's program to go after people who cheat the welfare system.